SpaceX finally landed on his boat with his Falcon Heavy Booster, only to knock him over

The road to reusable space rockets was always going to be bumpy, these are the technical challenges. SpaceX has made excellent progress, but its last hump has just fallen: its central reminder, the Falcon Heavy, falls into a rough sea off the coast of Florida.

The booster rocket had landed successfully on the SpaceX drone – called Of course I still love you – but crashed after the boat was hit by a swell up to three meters (10 feet) on the way back to the base.

Fortunately, it's even better than the last time when the booster had been thrown into the sea. A tweet Elon Musk, the boss of SpaceX, suggests that parts of the rocket could be recovered and reused.

This mission marks the first time that SpaceX has landed the three pieces of the Falcon Heavy rocket on Earth, even if the central thruster does not survive fully on its boat trip.

For reasons of efficiency, safety and fuel limitations, the other two side thrusters that make up Falcon Heavy were able to return to the landing area at Cape Canaveral, near the starting point of the rocket.

The central core booster must be salvaged at sea, because SpaceX has only two landing pads and a salvage at sea consumes less fuel than a landing. In the only previous Falcon Heavy mission to date, this booster was completely missing the drone ship and was thrown into the sea. SpaceX continues to progress.

"Over the weekend, because of the rough seas, SpaceX's recovery team has not been able to secure the recall of the center for its return to Port Canaveral," he said. said SpaceX in a statement.

"When the conditions worsened with 8 to 10 feet swells, the booster started to change and finally was unable to stand, and although we had hoped to bring it back intact, the safety of our team always takes precedence. do not expect future missions. "

This note of optimism about the upcoming missions is due to the fact that the next time, SpaceX has hinted that it will have a new improved octograbber: the machine that will hang and hang the smallest Falcon 9 accelerator SpaceX will also recover at sea.

All started well … the Arabsat-6A mission takes off. (SpaceX)

The Falcon Heavy uses a different design of the Falcon 9, so the octograbber could not be used this time, which probably did not stop trying to keep the rocket booster above the ship .

When reusable rockets finally become the norm, the cost savings will be enormous. This should mean more opportunities to explore the space and strengthen the technology that is already spinning around the orbit of our planet.

Last time, the payload of the Falcon Heavy included a Tesla Roadster. This time, the rocket put the Arabsat-6A communications satellite into orbit. Built for the Saudi Arabsat company, it was the first commercial payload sent to space by SpaceX.

The Falcon Heavy's next mission – with a newly installed core booster and two previously used boosters – will take off later this summer in Florida. Hopefully, on this occasion, the three parts of the medalist will reach the base.